By JENNY BARCHFIELD Associated Press
RIO DE JANEIRO July 15, 2013 (AP)
Edward Snowden has highly sensitive documents on how the National Security Agency is structured and operates that could harm the U.S. government, but has insisted that they not be made public, a journalist close to the NSA leaker said.
Glenn Greenwald, a columnist with The Guardian newspaper who first reported on the intelligence leaks, told The Associated Press that disclosure of the information in the documents "would allow somebody who read them to know exactly how the NSA does what it does, which would in turn allow them to evade that surveillance or replicate it."
He said the "literally thousands of documents" taken by Snowden constitute "basically the instruction manual for how the NSA is built."
"In order to take documents with him that proved that what he was saying was true he had to take ones that included very sensitive, detailed blueprints of how the NSA does what they do," the journalist said Sunday in a Rio de Janeiro hotel room. He said the interview was taking place about four hours after his last interaction with Snowden.
Greenwald said he believes the disclosure of the information in the documents would not prove harmful to Americans or their national security, but that Snowden has insisted they not be made public.
"I think it would be harmful to the U.S. government, as they perceive their own interests, if the details of those programs were revealed," he said.
He has previously said the documents have been encrypted to help ensure their safekeeping.